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Back in the day when big box retail started to explode upon the
American landscape like a raging economic scrofula, I attended many a town
planning board meeting where the pro and con factions faced off over the
permitting hurdle. The meetings were often raucous and wrathful and almost
all the time the pro forces won -- for the excellent reason that they were
funded and organized by the chain stores themselves (in an early
demonstration of the new axioms that money-is-speech and corporations are
people, too!).

The chain stores won not only because they flung money around --
sometimes directly into the wallets of public officials -- but because a
sizeable chunk of every local population longed for the dazzling new mode of
commerce. "We Want Bargain Shopping" was their rallying cry. The
unintended consequence of their victories through the 1970s and beyond was
the total destruction of local economic networks, that is, Main Streets and
downtowns, in effect destroying many of their own livelihoods. Wasn't that a
bargain, though?

Despite the obvious damage now visible in the entropic
desolation of every American home town, WalMart
managed to install itself in the pantheon of American Dream icons, along with
apple pie, motherhood, and Coca Cola. In most of the country there is no
other place to buy goods (and no other place to get a paycheck, scant and
demeaning as it may be). America made itself hostage to bargain shopping and
then committed suicide. Here we find another axiom of human affairs at work:
people get what they deserve, not what they expect. Life is tragic.

The older generations responsible for all that may be done for, but
the momentum has now turned in the opposite direction. Though the public
hasn't groked it yet, WalMart
and its kindred malignant organisms have entered their own yeast-overgrowth
death spiral. In a now permanently contracting economy the big box model
fails spectacularly. Every element of economic reality is now poised to
squash them. Diesel fuel prices are heading well north of $4 again. If they
push toward $5 this year you can say goodbye to the "warehouse on
wheels" distribution method. (The truckers, who are mostly independent
contractors, can say hello to the re-po men come to
take possession of their mortgaged rigs.) Global currency wars (competitive
devaluations) are about to destroy trade relationships. Say goodbye to the
12,000 mile supply chain from Guangzhou to Hackensack. Say goodbye to the
growth financing model in which it becomes necessary to open dozens of new
stores every year to keep the credit revolving.

Then there is the matter of the American customers themselves.
The WalMart shoppers are exactly the demographic
that is getting squashed in the contraction of this phony-baloney corporate
buccaneer parasite revolving credit crony capital economy. Unlike the Federal
Reserve, WalMart shoppers can't print their own
money, and they can't bundle their MasterCard and Visa debts into CDOs to be
fobbed off on Scandinavian pension funds for quick profits. They have only
one real choice: buy less stuff, especially the stuff of leisure, comfort,
and convenience.

The potential for all sorts of economic hardship is obvious in
this burgeoning dynamic. But the coming implosion of big box retail implies
tremendous opportunities for young people to make a livelihood in the
imperative rebuilding of local economies. At this stage it is probably
discouraging for them, because all their life programming has conditioned
them to be hostages of giant corporations and so to feel helpless. In a town
like the old factory village I live in (population 2500) few of the few
remaining young adults might venture to open a retail operation in one of the
dozen-odd vacant storefronts on Main Street. The presence of K-Mart, Tractor
Supply, and Radio Shack a quarter mile west in the strip mall would seem to
mock their dim inklings that something is in the wind. But K-Mart will close
over 200 boxes this year, and Radio Shack is committed to shutter around 500
stores. They could be gone in this town well before Santa Claus starts
checking his lists. If they go down, opportunities will blossom. There will
be no new chain store brands to replace the dying ones. That phase of our
history is over.

What we're on the brink of is scale implosion. Everything gigantic in
American life is about to get smaller or die. Everything that we do to
support economic activities at gigantic scale is going to hamper our journey
into the new reality. The campaign to sustain the unsustainable, which is the
official policy of US leadership, will only produce deeper whirls of entropy.
I hope young people recognize this and can marshal their enthusiasm to get to
work. It's already happening in the local farming scene; now it needs to
happen in a commercial economy that will support local agriculture.

The additional tragedy of the big box saga is that it scuttled social
roles and social relations in every American community. On top of the insult
of destroying the geographic places we call home, the chain stores also
destroyed people's place in the order of daily life, including the duties,
responsibilities, obligations, and ceremonies that prompt citizens to care
for each other. We can get that all back, but it won't be a bargain.

James Howard Kunstler has worked as a reporter and feature writer for a number of newspapers, and finally as a staff writer for Rolling Stone Magazine.
In 1975, he dropped out to write books on a full-time basis.
His nonfiction book, "The Long Emergency," describes the changes that American society faces in the 21st century. Discerning an imminent future of protracted socioeconomic crisis, Kunstler foresees the progressive dilapidation of subdivisions and strip malls, the depopulation of the American Southwest, and, amid a world at war over oil, military invasions of the West Coast; when the convulsion subsides, Americans will live in smaller places and eat locally grown food.

James, when you stated "another axiom of human affairs at work: people get what they deserve, not what they expect" it reminded me of a moment of consideration while I was at church. Several parishioners were asking, more like longing, and even praying Read more

James, when you stated "another axiom of human affairs at work: people get what they deserve, not what they expect" it reminded me of a moment of consideration while I was at church. Several parishioners were asking, more like longing, and even praying for the Second Coming of Jesus. Later on, I mentioned to a few, that BEFORE the Second Coming, there's a SEVEN YEAR Tribulation that has to be fulfilled in there ~ a LOT of suffering and anguish. I told them: be careful what you pray for.

It is my opinion that Kunstler, under the guise of environmentalism, may have a totalitarian agenda. His constant refrain, in article after article, is the need to 'manage' human affairs -- from forcing human beigns into mass transit to mandating alternative forms of energy. His initial support for the Socialist Obama is additional evidence for that agenda; his recent attacks on Obama reflects a view that the President hasn't gone far enough.

Take this snipet from the above article for instance: "...WalMart and its kindred malignant organisms ..." That people patronize WalMart to make the most out of limited budgets is of no concern to Kunstler. To allow an economy to go its own way (Capitalism) resulting in malls, parking lots, highways (all which 'mar' the landscape) is something which the Kunstlers of the world cannot stomach.

That the economies of the world are faltering is a fact. But the reason is just that which Kunstler would promote -- management by threat of force from governments. The only difference is that Kunstler would enthrone himself and his ilk as the new managers.